The tide is turning

On the UK Doctors Conference, and the moral imperative for us all to keep speaking up

I want to say a few words about the brilliant UK Doctors Conference, which was held last weekend in London.

I felt truly blessed and encouraged to have borne witness to the passion with which fellow health professionals were engaged in conversation during the breaks. Many of the delegates told me that they had learned more in one day than they had done over the last three years. It highlighted to me the profound need for health professionals to come together to share views and experiences and learn from each other about alternative approaches to health care – approaches that have obviously not been given enough (if any) airtime across the usual professional forums.

Nothing matches being together in person, and clearly these events are much needed. With this in mind, we are looking at how we might be able to support the creation of similar conferences in countries around the world. In the meantime, may I enjoin everyone once again to be bold and speak up about vaccine harms. If speaking up is too difficult – and I do understand this is different for everyone – consider sharing leaflets, which are available to download on the World Council for Health website.

One of our team took a bunch of these leaflets to their local pharmacy and they were very well received. People are waking up now to the reality of vaccine damage and its implications and are hungry for good, clear information. They need an access point, a way in. That may be through picking up a leaflet in their local pharmacy or a conversation with you while waiting at the bus stop.

Lockdowns made us far too comfortable with socialising and collaborating online, but in many ways that digital interface is sorely lacking as a means of connection. It is the in-person, physical interactions that seem to make the deepest impression – they’re also wonderfully difficult to police and control. Governments may be doing their best to pass new laws that silence so-called misinformation online, but for the time being, they have no jurisdiction over chit-chat on a park bench or around the kitchen table.

The tide is turning. You may find that friends who thought you were crazy for questioning vaccine safety a few months ago are willing to listen now. Many of us have loved ones suffering due to vaccine harms – letting them know that all is not lost, that there are ways to restore health, could be the lifeline they’ve been looking for. Of course, not everyone is receptive to these ideas, but that’s okay. It is still worth speaking up.

Today, I am at the UK Parliament, attending an All-Party Parliamentary Group on vaccine damage. It is that rare thing: an opportunity for the vaccine injured and bereaved to have their voices heard by people with the power to make a real difference in their quality of life. I dearly hope that many politicians attend and enact their moral duty to provide for those men, women and children who believed they were doing the right thing and have suffered devastating consequences.

In the meantime, whatever the outcome, we have to help ourselves and each other. Talking about vaccine harms is a powerful first step: as we speak up, we empower others to do the same. If we can get more and more people talking about this supposedly taboo subject, we open the floodgates to a public conversation that politicians and policymakers simply cannot ignore.